SHAF has been preserving and protecting historic sites related to the Battle of Antietam, the Maryland Campaign, and other Civil War activity in the region since 1986. We need your help to keep it going.

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The East Woods property is now in possession of the National Park Service (map courtesy of American Battlefield Trust)

As of Wednesday, June 27, 2018, the East Woods property has been officially transferred to the National Park Service and Antietam National Battlefield. This property, approximately 5 acres, was purchased in 2016 for $265,000, with about $20,000 from SHAF. We spent another $23,000 to demolish the buildings and restore the land. It has now been planted with trees to restore it to its wartime appearance.

“The Trust presented its Brian C. Pohanka Preservation Organization Award to the Save Historic Antietam Foundation (SHAF), a nonprofit group established in 1996 to preserve more of the Antietam battlefield’s landscape in a fast-growing part of the Washington metropolitan area. SHAF has conserved more than 3,000 battlefield acres in the Sharpsburg, Md., area, restored historic sites, and helped reforest the Antietam battlefield’s wartime North Woods, East Woods and West Woods. Dr. Tom Clemens, SHAF’s president, and SHAF co-founder Dennis Frye, former historian at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park [left and right in photo], accepted the award on the group’s behalf.”

To see the full press release from the American Battlefield Trust, click here.

All members and guests invited! Saturday April 28, 10:00 a.m. at the Mumma Farm barn, Antietam Battlefield. We will sum up the previous year, report on activities and finances, and discuss priorities, accept nominations for new Board members and discuss future plans. In addition, we may a have a presentation or two from board members.

We will also have SHAF hats, shirts and tote bags for sale, as well as books, prints and other items, all to benefit SHAF. There is a possibility Dennis Frye’s new book will be out by then, and if so he will have them there.

We will again have sandwich lunches delivered for those who like, and after lunch we will have a short walking tour of McLaws’ counterattack, featuring the 10 acre tract of land purchased last year.

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SHAF has been preserving and protecting historic sites related to the Battle of Antietam, the Maryland Campaign, and other Civil War activity in the region since 1986.

We need your help to keep it going.

Antietam Witness

The number of dead horses was high. They lay, like the men, in all attitudes. One beautiful milk-white animal had died in so graceful a position that I wished for its photograph. Its legs were doubled under and its arched neck gracefully turned to one side, as if looking back to the ball-hole in its side. Until you got to it, it was hard to believe the horse was dead.